Ireland celebrate scoring a try against Japan. Photo / Photosport
Ireland celebrate scoring a try against Japan. Photo / Photosport
OPINION:
The Irish obviously think they have smelled blood in the water, caught a whiff that the All Blacks are tiring and maybe even unravelling a little after more than 12 weeks on the road together.
Optimism is always floating about when the All Blacks roll into Dublin, the localsnever short of hope that the men in green will grow the proverbial extra arm and leg, stare down the haka and produce 80 minutes of harem-scarem rugby to snatch a famous win.
But what appears to have manifested in Ireland this week is something greater than hope; something more tenable than optimism. Probably, what the Irish are feeling ahead of playing the All Blacks this weekend is confidence.
It's a confidence borne by many things, not the least of which is that the last time the All Blacks came to Dublin, they lost.
Ireland's knees no longer go weak at the thought of victory against the All Blacks. They are no longer burdened by their fear of history, unable to carry the weight of it the way they once were.
While their Celtic brothers Scotland and Wales still tend to let themselves be consumed by the aura of the All Blacks and effectively defeated long before the game even kicks off, Ireland have built the self-belief and inner steel required to beat New Zealand.
It took them 111 years to find it, but after they banked that first victory in 2016, a second soon followed in 2018 and Ireland, fresh from playing the role of hot knife to Japan's butter last weekend, are understandably in buoyant mood.
Ireland celebrate scoring a try against Japan. Photo / Photosport
Having shed themselves of their inferiority complex, Ireland are better able to see and understand that the test on Sunday morning at Aviva Stadium will be the 14th played this year by the All Blacks, their fourth in consecutive weeks and their ninth since early September.
It may seem that these sorts of numbers are the norm, that this season doesn't look so different to all the others, but 2021 can't be lumped in with the rest and Ireland sense that 12 weeks in the Covid bubble will have inevitably drained the All Blacks of something.
The Irish can't help but wonder whether all that time away, living in each other's pockets without the escape hatch of normal life due to tighter biosecurity, will have left a few players pining for home and the All Blacks potentially a touch vulnerable this weekend.
The body of evidence is certainly there to justify any sense of confidence the Irish may be feeling, but they should be warned against reading too much, if anything at all, into what they saw play out last weekend in Rome.
It would be a mistake for Ireland, or anyone else, to look at the hapless and aimless rugby the All Blacks played against Italy and believe it was symptomatic of a wider malaise infecting the squad.
The All Blacks bumbled and fumbled. They lost their structure, were devoid of attacking ideas beyond driving lineout mauls and had no real time ability to adapt to the referee's breakdown rulings.
Dane Coles in action against Italy. Photo / Photosport
It was an all-round horror show, saved by a destructive set-piece, Dane Coles' fury and Finlay Christie's work as an auxiliary fullback.
But the performance in Rome was not the first sign of an impending collapse. The end of the world is not nigh for New Zealand rugby: there is no endemic rot setting in or existential crisis on the horizon.
What happened was that an All Blacks B-team learned the hard way that test rugby demands a level of preparation and focus regardless of the opposition.
It was a bad day at the office for a young, inexperienced group who looked like they made it to kick-off without the intensity of focus, understanding or attitude required to make the desired impact.
The performance was not illustrative of anything more than bad days do happen and that they happen to the All Blacks relatively frequently when they play Italy.
In 2009 a young, inexperienced B-team were awful when they beat the Italians in Christchurch and just as bad later that year when they won in Milan.
It was the same in 2012 – the All Blacks picked a mass of players they wouldn't usually, gave Kieran Read his first taste of captaincy and the performance was going nowhere until the veteran Cory Jane came off the bench and brightened the final 30 minutes.
Obviously for the players involved in Rome there will be detail to work through and lessons to be learned, but the selectors will wheel out the A-team this weekend and the All Blacks should be an entirely different beast in Dublin and whatever the Irish have caught a whiff off clinging to New Zealand in the last 24 years, it's probably not vulnerability.
